Guo Liang Tian

In every language, there are phrases that you can't take literally. I need to remember this whenever someone throws me the phrase, "Guo liang tian." It means, "after two days" but REALLY what it means is, "Not today, lady. Maybe some time in the next few weeks." Ironically, I'd rather have a "guo liang tian" than a "ban tian" which means "half a day" but really means, "Your guess is as good as mine."

I got "guo liang tian" yesterday when I called the management company to find out when the workers will come to fix The Thing. It's like a cancer spreading through our house. Maybe if I take these pictures over to them, I'll get a "jin tian" (today).

This hallway is where it all began. There was a small spot here when we moved in. The landlady said it was "where a dog peed." Yeah, I don't know any dogs that big. She had it fixed for us, but it's back. (that was supposed to be said all creepy) Every day I scrape off the new paint/plaster that has bubbled. The darker part is where it's constantly wet.

This is the wall across the hallway from the bathroom, which means it's seeping under the laminate floor.


Megan's room, on the other side of the bathroom, has had the brunt of damage.

This part's right up by her head. I didn't show the damage in Ethan's room, or our room, but it's growing there too. I had a picture of the flooring too, which is no longer flat but increasingly warped. I accidentally deleted it and feel like eating breakfast instead of reposting it. I think you're probably sufficiently appalled already anyway. Hello, management? Jin tian people!

The flat tire on our plane

When I was about 11 years old, my family went to Hawaii. Now, the details are sketchy, but I remember that there was a delay in our return flight taking off. Halfway across the ocean, we dropped fuel and headed back to Honolulu. We stayed there for what felt like hours, then flew to LA. We missed our connecting flight there, but caught a later one to Salt Lake City, where they'd held a plane for us for 45 minutes. When we finally landed in Minneapolis five hours later than intended, you'd think we were safe. And then the plane got a flat tire. The oxygen masks came down in a few rows. We were pulled back to the gate by a luggage car.

So when I wrote this morning and said all I had to do to get our kids' birth certificates was a taxi ride across town, I should have remembered this incident.

When I got to the hospital, I was helped by a woman named Apple, who connected me with Cherry from Medical Records. Cherry came down with photocopies of Megan's birth certificate which were not as nice as the ones I already possess. I told her that we needed actual original copies and asked if she could have them generate some. After some deliberation, they decided that they could not because they didn't have the right stamp for it (the Chinese have a love affair with red stamps).

The kids and I walked a few blocks to a market where I bought a few things. Erik called there and said that it was possible we only needed the hospital to write a letter confirming that our children were in fact born there. We headed back over, only to discover at the entrance to the hospital that I had set down the birth certificate copies somewhere on our shopping trip. After a frantic run there and back, and an hour wait for a doctor to write a "medical certificate" I now have two barely legible documents stating that "Butz Ethan" and "Butz Megan" were born in their hospital.

I sincerely hope that this is the flat tire on our airplane, but I'm not holding my breath. We're not to the gate yet! :)

More visa craziness

When Erik called the Hennepin County courthouse in Minneapolis last Friday to obtain another copy of our marriage certificate, he was told on the voice recording that they have birth certificates dating back to 1853, and marriage certificates back to 1903. That's impressive.

Not so here, at the clinic where our kids were born. I called this morning to see if I could get another copy of the kids' birth certificates. I was told that they have birth certificates dating back to when Megan was born, and record of birth dating back to March 2000 (Ethan was born February 23). This clinic has only been open about 10 years, so I can't imagine they are all that loaded down with records. I am baffled as to why they felt the need to purge already. Thankfully I have a copy of the original, from which they said they could issue a new birth certificate.

Why these new copies you ask? Oh well, it's just another step in the craziness that is our visa process. We found out last Thursday that to do this last step (hopefully) in getting our visas, we need original copies of our marriage and birth certificates. The problem is, we appear to have left those in our shipment, which is still in Singapore.

So another $100 to process and ship a marriage certificate from Minneapolis to Rochester to China, and a taxi ride across town to the hospital later, we should have what we need in time for the last processing stop. The message it seems we're getting is, "You have to REALLY want to live here." Well, we do. So on it goes.

Another toe injury

I heard the scream from up in my bedroom. The "I'm in pain, prepare yourself for blood" scream. Megan and Ethan were playing with neighbor kids down on the playground. I looked out the window and saw Megan high tailing it toward the elevator.

I couldn't go down before she got to the elevator, so I just waited on our floor, listening as her scream grew more intense with each floor. When the doors opened, my eyes scanned her body thinking, "Where's the blood?" It was her big toe.

I scooped her up and took her to the bathroom, suspecting it was not as worse as the blood made it appear. I sat her down on the counter and she asked me, "Can you see all the way to my bone?"

Only a little girl who has been through the toe trauma she's experienced would even think to ask a question like that. My heart just broke for her and the fear she must have been feeling. She thought she'd done it all over again.

While I bandaged her toe, she said, "If only I had been wearing shoes, it wouldn't have happened. I should have been wearing shoes." She said a similar thing to me a few weeks at night. She said, "Mommy, if I'd paid attention to the sign that said to be careful, my magic toe would curl." For those of you new to reading my blog, she's referring to the great Croc vs. escalator incident of '08. It's hard to see her feel regret over choices that anyone would make. But a great opportunity to teach her how to extend grace to herself.

How a dead battery interrupted our day

How long have you owned your car? And how many times during that time have you charged your battery? How many times did it die a death that no amount of shocking would revive? We've had our Hyundai Matrix for 4 years, and during that time we have only had the battery charged once. We've had the actual battery changed four times. We found out after the first and only charging that the batteries here are weak. Seriously weak. Like "Charging is useless. Expect to change it once a year" weak. And so we have.

It used to be that our battery would warn us that it was dying in a round about way by freaking out the key faab. Over time, it would become less and less effective at locking and unlocking the doors, until I had to resort to using the actual key. The car would interpret this as an intruder, and since the key faab was broken, I couldn't stop the alarm. I just had to sit there sighing, "I'm not stealing you, you idiot. I OWN YOU!"

Well, this time I had no such warning. True, in recent days it hesitated to start immediately, and I was having to point the key directly at the car for it to respond. But nothing prepared me for going out to the carpark at the office today and having it be completely unresponsive.

It's hard to express the level of my frustration. I had just been dropping off some documents on my way to take the kids to a friend's house. I was going to go home and work on a writing project that I rarely have time to work on. My heart response was, "Seriously God? Today?" I muttered, "What am I going to do?"
And a little voice from the back of the car said, "Pray?"

Uh, yeah. We should . . . pray. Wow - I have to admit that though it had crossed my mind to pray, I wasn't too happy with the Almighty at that moment and I was tempted to keep wallowing. But what do you say to your son who suggests you pray? "NO, I don't want to!" is maybe not the best example. So I prayed.

An hour and a half later, after making a 3 a.m. wake up call to my husband for the car repairman's number (sorry sweetie!), the battery was switched out and our car was alive once again. The blessing of this time was that my allergies had been terrible in the morning, but the hour in the office cleared them up!

What's the moral of this story? I'm not sure. Maybe it's "pray." Maybe it's "don't buy cars in Singapore." You decide.

Righteous Anger?

I just gave my management guy a verbal lashing. This is uncharacteristic of me. For one thing, I'm not a confrontational person. I didn't grow up learning to yell when I'm angry, or even be all that direct with my words. But I have to say that just now I raised my voice at him and spoke in no uncertain terms.

The situation is this: there is an electrical box not 10 feet outside our door (actually about 2 feet from our kitchen door) from which there has been a steady leak for the past three weeks. The water is actually running down the side of the electrical box and the encased wiring. I can't begin to say how dangerous this is. The management has been up to see it, and about a week ago they decided it was coming from our house. They shut off the water in our kitchen for a total of 4 days, but the leak kept coming.

Several days passed, then after pressure from the people on our floor the management came and shut off the water on the 7th floor. No change. This morning when I went out for a walk, there was a puddle 3 inches deep, and I snapped. I left a note on the management office door for Mr. Poon to come see me as soon as possible.

When I heard him out in the hallway, I went out and told him that this has gone on long enough. I am concerned for the safety of my family, as there could be a fire or other catastrophe at any moment. The man he hired previously to look at it was not actually a plumber, so I said that if he didn't hire a real plumber today, I would call one myself and send him the bill. At first he tried to give me the classic Asian brush off, with nods and mumbling about how he was taking care of it. By the end of my rant, he was insisting, "Ok, ok, I will call a plumber today."

I walked back into my house a bit shaken and surprised at my own emotion. I asked myself, "Is this righteous anger that I'm feeling? Does that make the fact that I just reduced a man to apologetic promises ok?" I think there was an element of it. It's a strange thing for me, exploring this idea of expressing anger in right and just ways. I think there are times for it - Jesus made that clear when he overturned the tables in the temple. I'm always hesitant to express it that way myself, but in this circumstance with this man I felt it was the only way something would be done. We'll see what happens.

Some Father's Day

Instead of being given a glorious day to rest and enjoy the fruits of his labor, my poor husband spent his Father's Day proving what a great dad (and husband!) he is! Just back from Vietnam yesterday, he was met by two kids and a sick wife at the airport. After lunch and a movie, I was in and out of consciousness for the rest of the afternoon. I'm not entirely sure how the rest of my family spent that time, to be honest.

Today, I managed to get to church, but realized toward the end that I really should have spent that time in bed. So my eternally sacrificial husband made lunch for the kids, then took them out for rollerblading and swimming while I rested at home. He topped it off by catching Ethan up on some Lord of the Rings reading and now he's working on our taxes. He's like the Energizer Bunny.

I did help him celebrate a little by making our favorite brownie recipe (even with fudge frosting!) and letting us eat them before dinner. It's a weak offering in return for all he does for us!

Triage baby

I know that across Asia, people are engaged in a much more serious form of triage right now as they deal with the aftermath of the tragedies in Myanmar and China. But it is happening on a lesser scale in our home, as the absence of a second adult forces the remaining one (me) to consider carefully what requires immediate attention and what can be left to bleed out for awhile.
The first to go is tidiness. Some things I've left so long out of place that I have come to consider them permanent, like, "Yes, that's where we keep that shoe, right there in the doorway to the kitchen." Yesterday I made an attempt to tackle this when I had the kids pick up 5 things each. When they were done I said, "Ok, another five!" This actually became quite entertaining to them, as they announced that they were on, "3rd of my 3rd" and so on, until the house resembled more of a home and less of a toy store that exploded.

The second thing to go is housework, at least any housework that doesn't directly relate to keeping our place pest free. I was thinking that I really didn't have many clothes, until I saw that they were on the mountain of clothing awaiting ironing. My bathroom floors haven't seen the business end of a mop for so long I'm embarrassed to admit it. On the other hand, I did manage to organize my homeschool shelf, rearrange all the kid's books according to type (easy readers, read alouds, information books), and the DVDs according to genre. But that's because in a sick way misunderstood by the majority of the population, organizing is fun and satisfying to me. And it was long overdue.

The next thing is nutrition, sad to say. If I think about it for more than a second, I know that eating well should be top on our list because then we'll be healthier and in better moods, not on some raging sugar/caffeine/scurvy rampage. Not that we resort to eating junk food, just much less balance than normal. Left to my own devices, I'd probably survive on oats. Really, I like oats - oatmeal, granola, maybe some yogurt thrown in. My kids, left to their devices, would survive on chocolate milk, toast, and fruity mentos. Which is why I'm still in charge. Thankfully we've been rescued many times this week by friends inviting us to dinner.

All in the name of triage baby. Deal with the most important stuff, like homeschool and going to the water park and reading books together and having friends over. If Erik comes back, and my kids are still alive, not starving, their brains haven't completely liquefied from overloads of television, computer games, and over processed foods, then I think I've done my job. Moreover, if they still like each other and me, and we've had some fun along the way, then I think it's even been a good job. The rest is just temporal.

Dangerous Crocs

The next time your dear little one is heading out the door wearing Crocs, you might want to remember these pictures. Here I thought that it was a blessing Megan was wearing Crocs when her foot got caught in an escalator, since I thought her wearing open toed shoes might have caused more damage. Turns out she probably had the accident because she was wearing these. Granted, the escalators were not up to safety par in anyone's opinion, but look at her shoe! My daughter's foot was in this. You can't see it too well because the material bounced back, but when it first came off her foot, the top part was twisted 180 degrees away from the bottom (see those cracks on the inside?). Her toe was broken in multiple places and she had stitches on three sides of it. Several nerves had to be reattached and one tendon was severed and couldn't be fixed. She'll have a cast for a total of five weeks. I'm not normally one of those doomsday moms, but this is one of those things that is so easily avoided. It may only happen to one in a million, but believe me, you don't want yours to be one of them.

Oh, and no, we aren't reporting this to Crocs. Why? Well, because it was a fake Croc and I'm guessing they don't care about that. But people have told me that the fake Crocs are actually a stronger material than the real ones, so I suspect it's more likely that the real ones could be caught in a moving floor. There, I've done my duty to society.

Our Biggest Thai Adventure

As if hot dogs in our waffles weren't enough, Megan decided to make this the ultimate trip to remember by landing herself in the hospital on Monday night with a severe Croc meets escalator injury. Yes, I now know it is common knowledge in the U.S. that Crocs and escalators don't mix, but that news has been slow to reach Asia. Until now.

Here's the situation - I was in the hotel room with a nasty head cold while Erik took the kids to the adjoining mall for dinner. On the way home, the Croc got caught and mangled, and Megan's middle toe was nearly severed. Erik scooped her up, and a friend who happened to be nearby helped him get to a hospital right around the corner. Being there from the beginning has made this a much more traumatic experience for my husband than me. He was gracious, as always, to protect me from the worst, so I had some time to absorb the depth of what happened. Here's the progress of my knowledge:
7:45 Erik calls and says, "Megan cut her foot and she'll need stitches. She'll be fine. You don't need to come."
8:00 Our friend calls and says, "You probably should come."
8:15 I get there and see that Megan's foot is already bandaged, so I'm wondering what the issue is. Erik tells me we have to wait until 11 p.m. to operate. Operate? Oh, there's nerve damage.
I think we probably will have to stay overnight.
10:30 They take her to the operating room. I feel like passing out because I remember I'm still really sick and shouldn't have been standing for the past three hours.
1 a.m. We go to the recovery room where the doctor starts talking about the tendon that couldn't be reattached, the artery that wasn't severed which kept blood flowing and probably saved the toe. And it hits me, "My baby almost lost her toe." Then he tells us we need to stay 3 days, probably 5.

If I'd had all that information at 7:45 p.m. I think I would have lost it. Although it killed me that my little girl had this horrible experience without me there initially to comfort her, I know that it's spared me the worst of it, and it was a lot easier for me to put on a brave smile when I was there (Megan is so sensitive that if I cry about anything, she will cry).

But last night, after two full days in the hospital, we got the great news that we could leave this morning. Since our hotel is right around the corner, the doctor felt it was safe for her to be there. She'll have a cast for five weeks and will always have less movement in that toe, but we have seen God's faithfulness in this situation. He's provided so many friends here who've helped with meals and entertaining Megan, and He's granted her healing that has amazed the doctor. Most of all, I feel like He's given us great peace and sustained us through it all. Thanks to those of you who have prayed for her!

Embracing Weakness

Today I was reflecting on my past life, by which I mean, "Life before Singapore." It was quite different from my life now. Or rather, I'm different. At least I like to think so. Before Singapore, I thought I had it all together. I was balancing raising two preschoolers, learning a second language, living overseas, and having a personal ministry with joy. I thought I was a Super Mom. Turns out I was just a mom with a part time maid. So God in His mercy saw fit to shatter my illusions by bringing me to Singapore.

Coming to Singapore has been a continual and deepening lesson in seeing my own inadequacy, lostness, self-sufficiency (God's not impressed with that) and pride. He's slowly stripped away or added things into my life to make me feel my desperate need for Him. It's been one of the hardest and most frustrating lessons of my life. Many times I have had to side with Rich Mullins when he sang, "I can't see where you're leading me, unless you've led me here, to where I'm lost enough to let myself be led."

I have no illusions anymore about having it all together. Oh sure, I try to do my best, but I know at the end of the day that if I accomplished anything, it was because of God's grace. I don't want to be someone who is perceived as strong and put together. I want to be real and approachable. As one of the speakers said at our conference this summer, "People don't draw close to strength - they admire it, respect it, but don't draw near to it . . . When you're wounded, you're just getting qualified."

So my encouragement to those of you who feel like you can't keep it together, are feeling inadequate, or lost, is to embrace it. That's where we meet God and see that His resources are so much greater than anything we imagine. It's also where we become instruments of grace to others - not because we are strong, but because we understand weakness.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God." Mt. 5:3

I tripped

I told Erik a few days ago that I felt like I was on a treadmill that was set just a little too fast. Do you know that feeling? Like you could sustain this for a few minutes, but eventually it's going to catch up with you and it's quite likely you'll trip, fall flat on face on the treadmill and slide off the end into a heap on the floor.

Today I think I hit that point. All week I've felt like I was just running from moment to moment, trying not to be overwhelmed by all I had to do, knowing full well I couldn't get it all done and feeling frustrated by all that I was letting go. Are my standards too high? Oh, quite often. I don't think that was the culprit this week. It was probably just the fact that I hosted about 20 people at my house for Thanksgiving and my life normally has very little margin anyway so that pushed me over the edge. Or off the end of the treadmill as it were.

I woke up this morning a full two hours later than usual, ate breakfast and went back to bed. If it weren't for the fact that I have two kids I simply can't ignore I'd spend the whole day horizontal. As it is, it looks like I just have to pick myself up and get back on that machine with a hearty "Help me Lord!" Thank God we decided not to do homeschool today!

Where I Am

Every Christian I know says they want to be spiritually mature. I know I do. I just want it without the hardship. Unfortunately, that's just not how it works.

I'm listening right now to Rich Mullins' "Where You Are" (Rich Mullins is a great comfort in times of trial). "And where you are ain't where you wish that you was - your life ain't easy and the road is rough - but where you are is where He promised to be - from the ends of the world to every point of need." There are so many reasons to rejoice in where we are, but things have changed - primarily in regard to our friendships and community - and it isn't the way I'd choose for it to be. But the theme of my life since coming to Singapore has been "dependence" - God slowly stripping away the things that I depend on besides Him. I thought He'd done a pretty good job up to this point, but coming back just feels like He said, "Nope, not enough - we're going to have to take this away too." I was talking with some friends the other day about how ruthless God can be to prune us from all the hinders us from knowing and relying on Him. He is relentless, but He is good. So while I grieve the loss of the way life was, I am strangely thrilled to see what comes of this. I am excited for the opportunity to trust Him more, to see how He provides, how He "satisfies our needs in a sun-scorched land" (Isaiah 58:11).

As difficult as this time has felt to me, I am convicted of my obvious addiction to comfort. I spent some time reading a magazine for missionary women recently, and considering their situations, (living in jungles without any modern conveniences, far away from other women who speak their language, no phones, no internet) I realized that I am fairly weak when it comes to "suffering." Not to diminish how I feel, but it puts perspective on my life. Am I really going to complain when I have SO much? It was a good reminder to choose to focus my attention on the blessings I have, not the things I am called to do without right now.